What heroes won at D-Day; How Ayan says it all gets lost; and When celebrities stub their toes.
3 Things this week and a poem for anyone who's wrestling right now.
Happy Sunday. Thanks for spending some of your weekend with Things I Wrote Down.
I got a few binge-worthy show recommendations from friends this week, but I can’t start them until I finish Masters of the Air (it really picks up by Episode 5). It seemed especially pertinent viewing this week as the West marked 80 years since D-Day.
I heard this week that heroes are often forgotten within three generations. What will we do to keep the stories of our inheritance alive?
It’s something I’m thinking about as I cue up the week ahead. Happy reading.
Here's 3 places to go on the web, and an original poem.
1. What Canadian and other heroes won at D-Day
History.com has an extensive write-up on the significance of the day, the planning and tradecraft that went into it, the weather challenges, troop deployments, and the heroics of what would be the greatest operation by air, land and sea in history.
While the events of the day seemed to be a bit overshadowed by a president who lit up the Internet with speculation that he soiled himself on stage and, who, like his British counterpart, left the celebrations early, there was appropriate pomp. There were some pretty wonderful moments I saw break through on X to honour the brave soldiers who gave their lives and amazing stories of soldiers still alive.
The CBC had a great feature with stories from Canadians who survived.
2. Ayan Hirsi Ali on how our freedoms get lost
With the reminder of what it took to win by the people who fought on D-Day, this week Ayan Hirsi Ali highlighted how it can all be lost.
Her essay, The Subversion of the West, was published in
. It’s a timely essay. Here’s a glimpse:The West’s inheritance springs from a peculiar confluence of habits and customs that had been practiced for centuries before anyone branded them as “ideas.” But they are principles—radical ones—that have given us the most tolerant, free, and flourishing societies in all of human history.
Among these principles are the rule of law, a tradition of liberty, personal responsibility, a system of representative government, a toleration of difference, and a commitment to pluralism. Each of these ideas might have been extinguished in their infancy but for the grace of God and the force of their appeal.
Perhaps it is because I was born into a part of the world where these principles were nonexistent that I feel a particular love for them—and an instinct for when they are in danger.
If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
3. How celebrities stub their toes
For a bit of levity, I found this viral video on Instagram completely re-watchable and hilarious.
I hope it makes you laugh. The Lady Gaga toe stub was a fave.
A poem
How do we make room in our lives for all the things of consequence that compete for our attention? I find it tough. So much breaking news. So much at stake. So many battle lines.
And we just got to get the kids to baseball practice on time. Make dinner. Finish work on a deadline.
This poem surfaced as I think about all that we juggle. All that we do and don’t do well. I hope it blesses you.
I wrestle life is a restless a transition between hopes arriveleavereturn become one word but the me in home is never the same not quite that place a different occupation of personal space always further from then full concentric circle again life is a longing a need to be where I am meant to be just the me that needs to inhabit the home away from the home that for now is me life is a quiet an intermission between thought and breath the implosion of myself within myself wrestling with the insides no human eye will ever see life is a dying an adjustment the process where I ends and he begins to prepare a place for me ©️ 2024 Andrew Kooman
Beautiful poem!